…fast forward three hours and I’m in a rubber dinghy on the River Spree, shaking with cold and trying to work out where the MPs I’m supposed to be interviewing are.Īpparently MPs just look like ordinary people when they’re bundled up in coats, scarves and life-jackets. scrolls back up to the Sunday-photos and weeps. “Did you get a message from Tom telling you to wrap up warm?”I was asked when I walked into the office this morning. It’s still fairly appropriate, because by Monday I was definitely still digesting about three quarters of the mountain of food I ate.

And here’s a picture of Elly and me in Vapiano on Sunday. So just… I don’t know, rest assured that everything’s cool. But my epiphany didn’t happen until Wednesday. I should probs try and lighten the mood now. Like I said, calling people in German covers so many things I know I have to get better at. So when I fail to pull it off, it can feel like I’m failing at every aspect of this year abroad. After loudly and embarrassingly repeating myself for the 7th time then giving up and asking if I could send an email (which I’m pretty sure he didn’t understand, because he then didn’t reply to my email), I felt like crying. He was from Triberg, which is kind of south-west Germany. Black Forest Gateau guy could not understand a word I was saying. Usually we struggle along for a few minutes, I pretend to understand everything they tell me and then plead with them to summarise it in an email (because I’ve actually understood nothing.) Or we last about 40 seconds in German before switching to English. When I email someone, get a reply, do a mental happy dance… then open the message to read: “Here’s my number: give me a call.” Of course, there are times when I really can’t wriggle out of it. Can I ask if you’ve received i t?” Said recipient is now forced to either reply, or admit they already read it and aren’t interested.

Because now I can open with “Hi, my name’s Hannah -blah blah blah-… I sent an email this morning. More frequently, I fire off an email, wait a respectable amount of time and then call. Sometimes I bottle the call altogether and hope that people will respond to my emails (SPOILER: people never reply to emails) …so unsurprisingly, I often don’t pull it off. Writing down quotes accurately and quickly.Confidently calling up sources for quotes.Understanding what people say to me in German.Why does calling people stress me out so much?! I think it’s because it kind of encapsulates so many things I want to be good at, and should be getting better at this year. (Our phone doesn’t actually look like that. I’m enjoying this internship, I really am. But I thought it might help set the scene) I got this one in Potsdamer Platz months ago.

…and then I tried to phone a man about a Black Forest Gateau. I ate breakfast in bed, read a bit of Hunger Games, cycled to work, arrived less than 5 minutes late (which is impressive, for me) and was in an all-round good mood. I don’t like to cast assumptions.Įverything was going great. …was the first time that I’ve emerged from a weekend here feeling at least almost ready to face the week. It couldbe connected to the alcohol-free weekend I’d just had… but I don’t know. You know that thing when, even when it’s not raining, it still kind of is? Like, when the water just constantly hangs around in the air, all misty and cold and disgusting? It’s the kind of thing I thought only existed in Scotland. I think we can all agree this was a massive lie. “Berlin winters are stupidly cold,” someone told me back in August. In terms of cold, wet stuff falling from the sky, this week’s been diabolical. Maybe try and soak up some Vitamin D from the pixels. So I don’t know let’s just sit and look at them for a while. I think it was the last time I saw the sun. These are a few photos I took last Sunday.

Black forest gateau aldi